


Home

by Katie_Madison



Series: BREAKDOWN/rebuild [4]
Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Balancing canon with character, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Giving up & Settling, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Peace?, Post-Canon, Rebuilding, Reconciliation, Regret, Reincarnation, Ruminations, Tangential thinking, The Happiest Addition to this Series, still not happy, well...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:48:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21873211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katie_Madison/pseuds/Katie_Madison
Summary: Sasuke wonders if it could be him;Prays that it could be him;......please
Relationships: (referenced/background) Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke, Uchiha Itachi & Uchiha Sasuke, Uchiha Itachi/Uchiha Sasuke
Series: BREAKDOWN/rebuild [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1150259
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place right before Sasuke decides to head back to Konoha after the next generation characters are introduced. Canon compliant, but hopefully... Not as sad as the rest of the series. ~~Mild Uchihacest if at all.~~ Similar style as the first two parts but with more plot and dialogue. Believable if not uplifting. Back to an introspective tense. 
> 
> Very chaotic because Itachi is chaotic and thinks and speaks in tangents, and Sasuke hasn't had a straight-forward thought since he killed Itachi either. Damn. 
> 
> Thank you for choosing to read this story. Please enjoy. ♡

_The subconscious can sometimes realize the truth before the conscious mind; manifesting as a pounding heart, sweaty palms, eyes clouded with tears brought forth from a place you did not believe still existed in you, a place you were certain had died a long time ago; a place that was stolen from you._

_Coming home after millennia, after the fall and rise of civilizations so ancient there is no longer anything left to tell of how they lived or died._

_Though you are certain that your home no longer exists, could no longer exist, could never exist again… Somehow, every part of you knows that you are there again against all odds._

_It doesn’t feel real, except it is more real than anything else you’ve known in your ~~sorry~~ existence._

“Hello. I’m the bookkeeper… Are you looking for any scrolls in particular?... Many ancient ones were damaged in the war, but we have the greatest number of survivors.”

_It feels... right._

_But there is no reason to believe; believe that he could still be alive, that he could be right here talking about nothing to you, as if nothing had happened._

_It is impossible. You know this better than anyone ~~since you were the one who took his life.~~_

_Hot, gushing blood and unseeing eyes that you have never forgotten, that looked nothing like the ones before you now; tepid and bright yellow-brown, with swirls of warm orange encircling pupils._

_Besides, where are the pitch black irises framed in lashes far too long, glittering, and beautiful for a man so deadly?_

_The voice is too light and high; higher than yours even, completely unlike the midnight tones of your dreams and nightmares alike, so dark and rich that it creeps over you like a shadow, raising goosebumps until your hair stands ramrod straight even now, even sixteen years after the last time you heard it._

“Sure… However… Can I ask how knowledgable you are on pre-war writings? You don’t look older than… sixteen?”

“I promise you I am quite knowledgeable… Though you are correct, I am sixteen… You have a good eye; people usually assume I am older.”

“They always have.”

“…Excuse me?”

_He looks terrified backed up against a bookshelf, and it should make sense because this body is... somehow, that of a civilian's – thin and scarless and filled with only the most basic of chakra pathways, never consciously tapped into during his short life._

_But it doesn't make sense. Why is he scared? He's stronger, smarter than you. Why should he be scared when you are nothing in his presense, have always been the one hanging by a thread when he so much as_ breathes _near you?_

_Your heart hasn’t stopped racing since you looked at him; your dark eyes blown into slits, a predator observing prey; though it could not be further from the truth of how he has always seen everything, seen you, so far detached from the mundanity of fear._

“You know who I am.”

_He lowers his head and looks to the side._

_Polite._

_Submissive._

_Still trembling._

_And it looks so wrong._

“… I am sorry, I do… I’d heard the stories, but… I thought… You would be more comfortable if I treated you like a normal patron… I saw how annoyed you looked when that other customer stared, I didn’t mean to offend you… By feigning ignorance.”

_How considerate._

_Familiar fondness, your hand raises to stroke over his cheek, thumbs trailing over trembling, full lips and a weak chin, delicate in a jawline so different from that handsome, regal face and those aristocratic sharp lines, the subtle gestures of mysterious dark eyebrows and quirking smiles._

_The need to get closer overwhelms; you inhale deeply against his fluttering pulse, yanking back his hair - though his hands struggle to push away. His lithe frame is so short, too short - should be looking down at you, not up at you - soft olive-green hair too short, barely tickling your neck._

_Still, no matter the shape he is now; no matter how little he resembles him – he is him._

“... Come with me. Please.”

_In a moment, his demeanour changes from a foreign one, into a more familiar one; familar disappointment. A mouth curled up, pupils darkened, flat. He stands straighter and removes the hands from his face with surprising aggression considering they belong to one of the strongest known ninja ~~alive~~. _

_He looked like how you’d imagine he'd looked facing off against the Konoha elite asking him to kill, to die - severe but yielding._

_Beautiful and captured in your bloodiest sharingan red; but he does not care, doesn’t tremble anymore._

“No! Who are you...? This is my home?”

“But it isn’t... I don’t know what you’ve done to yourself, or what someone did to you, but you know that’s not true...Nii-s-, _You_ are... coming.”

_He swears and starts running until stopped with a tight hand around his neck and a rough knee pressed tight between his too short legs;_

_He looks frustrated._

“What will you do if I say no?... Take me away away to … _where even?_ Whatever it is that you want from me, do you want it so much that you would _hurt_ me to get it?... Some forgiven... _warhero_ you are.”

_And if you needed anymore confirmation, there it is. That theoretical tone, incisive razor-sharp acuity to get exactly at the core of what everything was about, the meaningless of it all; the nihilism of being a ninja with too much power, swinging ones way through life with two bloody fists instead of a compassionate heart and a soft word._

_It’s him; it’s home._

_You’re broken; you ~~plead~~._

“I never thought I’d see you again, and then I saw you again… and now here you are one more time... You said you’d always love me... Didn't you?...”

_The activation of your sharingan is instantaneous, and the search for memories is just as quick; you know what they are, and where they will be._

_Seeing yourself through his eyes, feeling his emotions; his vision always brushed with suppressed affection._

_There's nothing else that matters. Not in this lifetime. Not Ever._

“Come with me. Please.”

_His ruse is over._

_That narrow-eyed sigh is him without facade, just as the hand stroking through your hair – an act not often undertaken by a busy young ninja with his desperate younger brother (though they both longed and longed and never managed to stop longing for each other no matter how far and long they ran.)_

“That might have made sense at some point, Otouto… But not anymore. Go home to your family… Your days of running were over once you decided to put down roots… At this rate, you’ll be a worse father than Otou-san was. Let me go.”

“But… I still haven’t found what I’m looking for...”

_A piercing, sidelong glance._

“That’s because you’re looking for something that doesn't exist… Peace as a ninja in a lawless ninja world.”

... 

_Wait._

_That sounded disturbingly familiar._

“Did... Do you think… they were right, then? With the infini-,?”

_His hand, looking raised for a forehead poke, turned into an unprecedented cheek-pinch instead._

“It doesn’t suit you to be purposefully daft… Or is obliviousness what impresses the women of Konoha these days...?"

"...Why the fuck-"

"-What I’m _talking about_ is the inner peace that comes with the comfort of knowing yourself, and knowing your place in life... Not peace born of an illusion or lie... Or a forced genjutsu by some Messiah...”

“So... you think… You’ll find... inner peace here?”

_A leveling look - sharp and considering, pupils not moving though they seemingly take in everything in the universe and beyond._

“You guilelessly asking me questions with no answers like that was cuter when you were a kid… But you’re a whole adult now. Tall and handsome-”

"-What the fu-,"

_And then he grins._

_Grins?_

_..._

_Oh._

_He was teasing._

_Brotherly teasing… Is this what that looked like? Would have looked like? Should have looked like?_

_In a better world?_

“-Of course inner peace isn't so easy to find… But at least here there’s less blood. And I don’t have to pretend to want to be a ninja anymore.”

“…Is this who you want to pretend to be instead?”

“All my life I... played roles. At least in my afterlife, I wanted to be free to follow my whims... My obligations to everyone that I had obligations too are fulfilled. It's not perfect but... running an old bookstore filled with scrolls and barley tea and the knowledge that my Otouto is safe… With the family that he made… And the wife that he returned to, and the daughter that he _knows_ is-,”

“ _Stop_... You’re still martyring yourself and manipulating me... like that will make this _pathetic_ life enough.”

Rolled eyes. 

“There will _never_ be enough though?... Not for us?... What could we do? Topple everything that exists until the Uchiha Massacre's _truth_ comes pouring out and civilization restarts after death and war? With all of the feudal lords, scarcity, blood-spill, and animosity of the Warring States? Or keep our heads down and find something – whatever it is – in the quiet moments of a wretched life that make it worth living, and hope that the what if’s of the other choices don’t _suffocate_ us...”

_The following silence suffocates you anyways, though he looks fine under the pressure, too-light eyes focused but blinking naturally, as though the answer he had posed was the best solution he could come up with after considering everything and more._

_Fuck._

_What could be said to that?_

_(Even when's he's on your side, he drowns you, leaves you out of your depths.)_

_But-,_

“Can I atleast take you to dinner?”

“People are waiting for you at home… Maybe next ti-,”

“-Too bad… Because I waited for your 'next times' and they never came. I’m thinking _now_.”

_The kiss is reckless in many ways, looking as it does like a grown male ninja sexually assaulting a young civilian teenager, and being as it actually was… a familial transgressance... Even if the clan liked to keep their marriages close._

_Somehow, there is no resistance to the palms cupping a too-round cheek, a too slender waist._

_But reciprocity?_

_Well._

_The resulting smile is as much of a Mona Lisa quirk of lips as ever; unreadable._

“...Are you now?”

“I’m not going blindly follow everything you say; it’s been fifteen years… I’ve changed; I’ve grown.”

_His eyelids lower; unfathomable, unhappy._

“Hmm… Grown into someone who would make even worse mistakes than I did, it seems… considering nobody's ever even threatened you to _leave your family,_ and yet you did anyways… _Y_ ou’re a big, strong man now, right?... Go home... Protect them like you _prayed_ for the chance to protect me, the Uchiha...”

_That fucking hurt._

_Everything he gives you; frustration and anger; chaos_ _._

“I can never understand what goes on in your fucking head _..._ What do you _want_?”

 _The smile turns stilted, apologetic_.

“What I always have: peace.”

_He steps back._

_Disappearing again._

_Disappearing like always._

“Wait!… What about what _I_ want? Can't I balance it?... I can be... _Peaceful - fuck -_ for the people there, but here, with you, sometimes atleast... Please?”

_You could never get this desperate for anyone else, though his only response is to pause; sigh._

“Eleven pm, then, after closing. Let's have dango.”

“What-,”

_But he ignores you and scuttles off behind the sales counter, returning with a series of worn scrolls carried tenderly in his soft hands - as though they held all the secrets in the world. He transfers them diligently - as diligently as a newborn baby entrusted to him by parents who expected too much from a boy far too young._

_"_ Here are our ancient scrolls... Mr. Customer-san.'

_He walks forward to help an elderly couple entering as his fluffy fair-colored hair forms a halo around his pleasant face._

.

.

.

_You scoff despite yourself._

_Confusing, manipulative, ridiculous, frustrating, and loyal to an insane extent._

_Still._

_He ~~feels like,~~_

_**is** ,_

_home._

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you found something of interest in this admittedly strange story. It has a lot of themes and analysis but hopefully they balanced well against the central focal point of emotion in these characters' lives. 
> 
> Thank you so much for your continued readership and I would be thrilled if you decide to leave kudos, bookmarks or comments.
> 
> Take care and may 2020 bring you unprecedented success.


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